


Humanity Knows Many Shades

by theonenerdslike



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Bisexual Dean Winchester, But some blurry lines are explored, Canon-Typical Violence, Dubious Consent, F/M, Homophobic John Winchester, M/M, Multi, No Wincest
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-02
Updated: 2017-09-02
Packaged: 2018-10-08 14:08:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,317
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10388400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theonenerdslike/pseuds/theonenerdslike
Summary: Dean discovers something unexpected about Sam and he feels like a total douchebag for never noticing. Now he needs to adjust to this new information quickly enough to safe his brother’s soul with it, before it's deformed beyond recognition.





	1. Prologue: You Don't Know What Love Is

**Author's Note:**

> This work is set in season 4. It is pretty much canon compliant, but rewrites the end of season 4 and certain events to explore our favorite characters in more depth. There are hints of dubcon (ruby/sam, which is canonically a dubcon relationship but I still wanted my readers to be warned). I hope this work is not too late to the party to enjoy it properly; I certainly enjoyed catching up with supernatural about 5 years too late though. Thank you for reading!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ruby has developed a kind of wanting for Sam and abandons her original plan of getting him to kill Lillith and get killed by Lucifer afterwards. She goes to Crowley for help.

Fuck. Fuck Fuck Fuck. _Fucking Winchesters_. This was supposed to be a simple plan. Long and diabolical, sure, but easy in terms of execution. Three simple steps. First, give a grief-stricken, vulnerable Sammy Winchester the one thing no one but his dead brother has ever given him to get him to trust her: unconditional love and the apparent willingness to catch a bullet for him. Second, manipulate him with comforting nothings, sex and demon blood in to developing his powers and killing Lillith at the right time. And then finally, celebrate while Lucifer worships the ground she walks on, ground that happens to be littered with bits and pieces of permanently defeated Winchester. 

She was so close, so goddamn close. The first step was easy enough: set a trap and save the damsel in distress. Those two demons she led Sam to were just as clueless as he was and killed in a heartbeat. The second step wasn’t that hard either. Sam’s need for intimacy and his misplaced sense of responsibility for the entire world pretty much did all the work for her. The last step though, that’s where things got complicated. She was a demon for crying out loud, she was not supposed to catch feelings for a lousy human. But Sam turned out to be so sweet, and handsome, and determined, and darker than he realized himself, and most importantly, so very pliable. Easy to control. Loyal to a self-destructive level. She was so close, but then this little shit had to charm her with his complicated, dark and moldable personality. Not so long ago she fantasized about Lucifer finishing him off after being freed, but now she was on her way to make sure she can keep him with her and under her thumb once Hell was released on earth. 

She had been looking for a way to get him to do what he needed to do without ending up dead for a long time. If she didn’t want Lucifer to kill him, he would need to side with them. Moreover, he would need to be useful to Lucifer somehow. There was absolutely zero chance of that happening when Sam was just being Sam. Too sweet for his own good. No, if she wanted a chance for him to live, he´d need to become just like her: a demon who would gladly serve Lucifer and kill Lillith out of his own free will.

But demons were formed by centuries of being tortured and torturing other souls. By slowly but systematically stripping a soul of all human traits like compassion, love and hope. She didn’t have time to go through that process, Lucifer had been locked up for more than long enough. No, she needed a shortcut. So when she called for Crowley, she was hoping he’d have a way to speed up the process. And it turned out that he did.

She had to suffer through a lot of British innuendo meant to humiliate her for falling for a human, but he told her eventually. “Everyone wants to get down and kinky with the Winchesters, but I had never guessed you’d be the type to keep pets, darling. I have connections who might be able to turn him in to your eternal plaything. I am a business man though, sweetheart, you know nothing is free with me”. He winked and grinned at her, snickering when she rolled her eyes. “Just tell me what you want Crowley, I don’t need all the… flair”. “My price will depend on my business associate. I’ll be back”. With a dramatic flirty kiss in the air he disappeared.

He returned some hours later, unnecessarily making a dramatic entrance through the door instead of simply appearing in the same room, and explained. Crowley sometimes made deals with other entities from the Underworld. When he needed a soul to be deconstructed asap, he consulted Lethe. Lethe controls one of the five rivers of the Underworld, and its water has some remarkable properties. The water’s main property, erasure of the memories of whoever drinks of it, is responsible for her title as Goddess or Forgetfulness as well as the assignment of her responsibilities. Normally, souls that need to be reincarnated (Crowley had merely rolled his eyes when she said “not all souls go to heaven, hell or purgatory?”) swim and drink from the river to forget all of their last life before being moved back to earth. For the right price however, Lethe is willing to force a soul in to the water and strip it only of the happy ones. The process only takes between 8 and 32 hours, depending on the age of the subject. The treatment is more effective when the subject has a lot of unhappy memories, since stripping happy ones leaves a more scarred rather than a neutral soul when trauma is left. Obviously, that makes Sam a prime candidate.

Lethe’s price is a high. Souls that are meant to move on to heaven swim and drink from the river of Mnemosyne. Mnemosyne doesn’t strip souls from their memories. Instead she uses their memories to construct their personal heavens and makes sure those memories are never forgotten. Somewhere in the eons of the goddesses’ lives, they had become vengeful rivals. “Who knows why. Maybe Lethe didn’t like that Mnemosyne bought the same dress. Maybe they couldn’t agree on who the cutest demon is. They’re women.” Crowley sneered when Ruby asked about their rivalry. “Point is, her price for stripping Sammy for you is 200 souls that were actually meant for Mnemosyne. Now I can get her those souls, but it’s painstaking work. You don’t need to worry about how. Luckily for you, I’ve grown quite partial to the Winchester boys. As long as your highly messed up, deadly puppy is on my side, I’d rather have him as a minion than simply dead as well”. He sipped from the glass of whiskey he poured himself (he didn’t offer her any, of course, so rude for a Brit). “To make up for the work I’ll have to do, I want your servitude. You and Moose, bound to hell and my commands for 200 years. By contract this time, so no rebelliousness will be possible”. 

So, Ruby would have to give up her freedom for 200 years. Probably torturing souls or corrupting the innocent or whatever. Been there done that. She’d get to do it together with Sam anyway. Plus, there’s a good chance Lucifer will be so happy with her he nullifies this little agreement. She wondered why Crowley didn’t think of that. “Ok. Deal.” she told Crowley. “Daawh. True love. I wish someone would love me enough to deform my soul for their own means” he snickered sarcastically. Ruby felt their situation wasn’t exactly like that, but decided not to argue with him.

They tried to come up with a plan while Crowley was composing a unique contract for Ruby. Ruby knew Dean and Bobby had Sam on lock down, and also knew he would never come back to her if they succeeded in detoxing him. But then it was like they were literally getting a gift from heaven. While they were thinking about ways of breaking him out, _the angel_ of all people did it for them. He broke him out, left him starving for demon blood, and claimed it was in the name of god. Castiel. Impossible.

When he came to her again, hungry and horny and upset, Crowley was waiting there for him. He was weak and confused from withdrawal. It was so easy. Crowley took him to Lethe and even though Sam seemed betrayed and upset when she kissed him and whispered “Soon we’ll be together and Dean, Bobby and everything else will seem irrelevant” in his ear, she was sure she’d get what she want soon enough.


	2. But then again, who does?

will be updated soon


End file.
